Does congestion kill the economy?

When Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood released a policy statement on biking and pedestrian accommodations earlier this month, promising “the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” he found himself in hot water with road and driver lobbies.

They predicted that traffic would get worse — a line of thinking San Franciscans have seen before. The logic behind that leap has its own challenges (what about the people who stop driving in order to bike?). But the road warriors also claimed that the congestion would put a wet blanket on the already ailing economy.

This second prediction seems more likely to be true — except it’s not. Congestion has no statistically significant impact on economic growth, according to an analysis by law professor Michael Lewyn.

For instance, Los Angeles tops the list of worst traffic delays; it’s economy shrunk by 3 percent in 2009. San Francisco places fifth, and it’s economy shrunk by whopping 10 percent. Nor was there any clear pattern in the order of the two lists overall.

Lewyn also allowed for possible lag time: Congestion last year might cause economic pain this year. That data also showed no relationship.

In fact, nationally, road congestion costs us just 1 percent of the GDP, meaning that making investments in alternative modes of transportation — even if those investments do cause more traffic — has about the same chance of stifling the economy as a lollipop purchase does of sabotaging your monthly budget.